Christmas at Home

What a blessing to have Christmas in our home! We miss our family and friends dearly but it is a treat to be in our home and start our traditions for the first time. Every other year we've been in on the road or in transition but not this year! I especially miss the way my Nana Joanne has someone read the Christmas story from the Bible and then organizes the children and a few reluctant adults into a play that helps the children understand why we have Christmas. I hope we will follow that example to teach Jacob, Daniel and Elisabeth that Christmas is not presents and Santa, but our Lord Jesus Christ's birth.

Today we had a big turkey and ham lunch with friends and then went to a candlelight service at church. Jake stayed with us in "big church" and I think he'll want to do that more often now that he knows we play with fire in "big church." We came home and had a little hot chocolate and settled in for the night in our warmest jammies.
On Friday we baked a birthday cake for Jesus and every second since I've realized that was entirely too soon. It seems I have been chasing boys off of the counter every five minutes since. You could feel the anticipation in the air as I put them to bed and we talked about tomorrow finally being Jesus' birthday. We have spent a good amount of time talking about the meaning of Christmas over the last few weeks and so far all that has sunk in is "it's Jesus' birthday and we get to eat cake." Better luck next year I hope. It has been a blessed year in that this year, both boys learned the name of Jesus Christ and they know that God made everything (even bugs and tractors). Jake is turning into the little boy from Jerry Macguire. At mealtimes he always has a bit of trivia to perk up the conversation. "Did you know that birds eat worms?" "Did you know that lizards eat bugs?" Then Dan runs to tell "Zeh-dee" good morning and then he looks out the window for Frosty. The family across the street has an inflatable snowman and the boys are amazed that he leaves each morning and comes back each night but they never see him come or go. They look out at dinner and yell "Frosty's home!"

Erik installed a pull up bar in a doorway for those times when you just need to do pull ups. Dan always needs to do pull ups when his Daddy does.

I pray you all have a Merry Christmas, I wish we could see each of you! If you ever want to wear short sleeves and no coat at Christmas, come stay with us.

Our Christmas Bunny

Well here he is! We got up early and had a busy morning shopping for Zebedee, then headed over to our friends' home to pick him up. The boys were very excited but I don't think Zebedee shared the sentiment, that could be because he was in an ice cream Drumstick box but who knows.The boys diligently assembled Zebedee's hutch once we got home while the bunny was "secured" in his ice cream box with the assistance of a toaster stacked on top. I know this is where my parents would pipe in with the story about the time I "secured" my hamster in the cage for the night with a large stack of books piled high in the air. In the night, the hamster knocked the books down and my parents thought someone was trying to break into the house. My dad jumped out of bed and proceeded to patrol the yard with a gun. Once they discovered the perpetrator to be a hamster I was sternly warned to never stack books on the cage again.We let the little guy hop around the play room for a while and fed him apples and celery to bribe him into loving us. Jake even offered him trucks while Danny just chased him. Jake thanked God for Zebedee during his dinner pray along with fire trucks, cars, semi-trucks, tractors, tow trucks and trucks. I don't think any sort of produce will ever spoil in our house again with the bunny around. We've been trying different types of fruit and I hit the little boy jackpot with tangerines (tangeens in Danny speak). They strangely keep disappearing and I find little pieces of peel all over the house along with sticky little fingerprints on the walls. Mysterious clues indeed!

Another Family Member on the Way

Okay, how many of you read that and panicked thinking we were pregnant? :-) We are getting a new pet tomorrow! His name is Zebedee and he is a mini-lop bunny, about 6 months old. A friend from church took him in from a family that raises show rabbits, however Zebedee couldn't be shown because he has an under bite. He's falls easily into the realm of "so ugly he's cute."

Jake had no interest in the rabbits but Danny was fascinated. He petted every one that was taken out of the cage and when our friend held a palm-sized bunny towards him, he kissed it! Then he told her which other bunnies needed to come out to be kissed and he proceeded to kiss each of them in turn on the nose. Erik, of course, was interested in getting a mating pair of meat rabbits to supply us with meat. I'm a little less than optimistic on that endeavor.

The boys have done so many cute things this week I don't know where to begin. Erik taught them to pound their chests like gorillas so Dan walks around beating his chest while shouting "gah-rilla!"

I'm sure you all know that Erik has a beard now. When Jake was Dan's age I taught him the words for many of his body parts. He was really excited to show you his "chinny chin chin." Well Danny apparently feels he has no chin and instead has a beard like Daddy. If you ask him where his chin is, he rubs his chin between his thumb and index finger like men with beards do and says "beard." He has high aspirations!

Poor Miss Libby had vaccines this week, 5 shots and one oral. Now she has a goopy eye and just isn't feeling well. Her brothers have no sympathy. Jakey is just excited that he discovered he can jump over things...and people. If you lay in the floor or fall and are crying and happen to be in the floor because you can't crawl or walk yet, too bad. You are an obstacle course that must be conquered. He runs and jumps over his obstacle and lands with a resounding thud and much laughter. I love little boys, however I think they will have to grow on Libby. Merry Christmas!

A White Christmas

Well, we had to drive for an hour to find it, but we do have snow in Southern California. Erik told Jake before we even left the house that we were going to play in snow. That's pretty much setting yourself up to have to drive to Colorado if all else fails. because if you tell Jake something there is no rest until it comes to fruition.

We ended up just north of Gormon, CA in the Hungry Valley ATV reserve. It is high enough in altitude that the snow hung around for a little while. The guys walked through some trails and saw guys on dirt bikes, which was very exciting for little boys. Dan was really confused about how cold snow is so he kept calling it hot. Jake just wanted to pee in the snow, and Erik was more than happy to let him.
I took Danny back to the doctor, after the second diagnosis, which was impetigo, he took antibiotics. It seemed to work for a while and then soon his rash worsened. We went back for a third diagnosis this week, excema, and now have more medicine. This seems to be working. Erik and I have decided that it probably was excema all along but it got infected so that was why the antibiotics seemed to help at first.

Jake is looking over my shoulder as I type. He pointed at the picture and said "There's Jacob looking for motorcycles." He does love to speak in third person... Merry Christmas!

Danny the Red-Nosed Toddler

We took our family Christmas pictures not a day too soon because last night Dan was trying to walk on the curb at church and face planted. The tip of his nose took the majority of the road rash.

That coupled with the never-ending impetigo rash leaves him looking pretty rough. This is a beautiful shot, minus the rash, that our friend Hallie took when she did our family pictures.

We should just PhotoShop the rash out and this would be beautiful! Why is it that when you do family photos, each person's best is someone else's worst? It makes it really hard to decide which one to pick. Is it better to go with Danny's chin tucked it or being able to see the candy in his mouth (I'm not above bribery) or should we go with Libby's turtle face or Jake's cheeks sucked in because he too has candy in his mouth. What to do...

Peas

Libby started vegetables last week and apparently peas are delicious! Danny sat close by tonight to watch us feed Libby so I jokingly offered him a bite. Surprisingly, he accepted, ate it, and asked for more. Poor Libby, even her strained peas get taken away by her brothers. I thought this was a cute picture with the green peas all over her face and the "leprechaun" bib Stacey bought for Libby while in Ireland.

Tonight as I was putting the kids to bed, Jake told me he was going to jump off the bed and touch the ceiling fan. He also said I should watch out because if it falls it will "break yourself and have fire." Hmmm... He is really entering boyhood with the little plots he devises. Danny is developing a deep love for prayer and asks us to pray often. He will interupt at any point and yell "Pray!" and fold his hands expectantly. We think he only likes to do it because it is the one thing he can tell us to do and we will immediately do it. The power to control! He yells "Amen!" at the end like a Southern Baptist though, I bet his Nana loves it.

All I Want for Christmas is a New Front Tooth

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We ate too much at the Hunt's and had a great time. After eating too much turkey, all a girl wants to do is take a good, long nap with her daddy. Or maybe she was seeking protection from Danny, who dumped sweet potatoes over her head...

Jake has been quite cranky lately and not eating well, shocking I know, but it was evident that his teeth were bothering him. He has fallen and put his front tooth through his lip many times and I noticed at one point during our trek westward that one of his teeth was turning dark. I waited until we got here (and had dental insurance) and took him to see the dentist this week. He had to have a root canal and a cap put on the dead tooth and he has been feeling and acting and eating much better ever since.

It was an ugly process though. They don't like to use sedation if they don't have to so they strap the kids into a "papoose" that holds them still and then use a thing that resembled a torture device to hold his mouth open. Erik took him to that part and I am grateful, I probably would have cried more than Jake. The cap is painted white on the front so it doesn't look natural at all but at least it isn't silver. Erik wanted the bling though. Too bad.

We decorated our tree yesterday and Jake is a little confused about stockings...

The boys were very helpful and only broke four ornaments and one snow globe!

Libby has discovered that she has a bottom lip and has been sucking on it. It makes her look a little like a turtle, a cute one though.

It will be nice to spend Christmas in our house with no traveling and really start our own family traditions. I really miss the huge family Christmases from my childhood but am ready to establish our own way of things. Let me know any neat traditions your family does!